by S. H. Jucha
High overhead, Svetlana overflew the last nest marked by Nyslara and continued on. The aim was to plot the unknown nests as she worked her way eastward, as the Harakens had defined the north-south poles of the planet. The travelers’ controllers were programmed to detect the telltale circles that indicated the round hatch covers. Once Svetlana discovered the most eastern nest, she would work her way back west, dropping off emissaries.
The pilots kept in contact with the Sojourn, where Alex and the captains intended to monitor the emissaries’ progress and reroute the pilots as necessary.
It was a few hours before Svetlana and Willem finished their survey. Of course, they had no way of knowing exactly where one nest ended and the other began, but Nyslara’s information indicated that the nests were similar in size to one another. The queen had given Willem a long rambling explanation as to why this was, but Willem had professed to Alex that Nyslara’s recital was way beyond his translation capabilities, stating that he thought the queen was educating him on the social dynamics of a nest.
At the farthest edge of the Dischnya’s expansion, Svetlana, who was monitoring closeup images of the ground in her helmet, said to Willem, who sat in the copilot seat, “Let me know where you want me to set the ship down.”
“I see potential lookout hatches but they appear to be overgrown not just camouflaged,” Willem replied. Nonetheless, he directed Svetlana to a bare patch of ground.
The first emissary exited the hatch slightly confused. Along with his fellow warriors, Haffas had sat quietly in his chair, awaiting the motions of the alien craft and more than a little apprehensive. Now, much later, he was stepping out of the ship onto strange ground without having felt any movement. Haffas squared himself and his mask and marched the ten paces forward, as explicitly directed by his commander and repeated by the queen. Over and over, it had been stressed to the emissaries that they were to follow their instructions exactly, and, in case of trouble, take orders from those Harakens who spoke the Dischnya language.
Haffas glanced back at the ship and received a nod of approval from the Haraken called Willem. He stood in the rays of Nessila until he could feel the heat cooking his skin through his thick fur. Occasionally, he sipped on his flask, trying to prevent a buildup in his bladder. Relieving himself on the grounds of a foreign nest without permission was tantamount to marking his territory and was known to have started wars between nests.
“No response?” Willem asked. He stood directly behind the emissary, and Haffas jumped in the air with a yip. The emissary hadn’t heard or smelled Willem’s approach.
“Fellum, no,” Haffas scolded. “Walk to greet soma at the muzzle, never at the tail.”
Willem apologized and zoomed his eyes in on what appeared to be the nearest disguised tunnel entrance. Many small things did not seem right to him. He instructed Haffas to return to the ship, and he walked up to the nearby brush, which covered a hatch. Willem expected to find it locked tight, but it gave with a screech as he pulled on it.
A rotting stench swept past him. It might have doubled a human over, retching to clear passageways, but, as a SADE, Willem pulled a couple of tests through his nose and mouth to analyze the scent. It was the smell of decayed meat, a great deal of it. Willem let the hatch drop and returned to the ship.
The moment Willem stepped aboard the traveler, six muzzles pointed overhead, sniffing the air. The emissaries growled softly at the scent of decaying Dischnya.
“The nest is dead,” Willem announced.
“Not a war,” Haffas said. “A queen takes a nest … adds soma to hers … her territory expands.”
“Perhaps illness among the soma,” Willem said, hazarding a guess.
“It has happened before,” Haffas allowed.
Closed up in a tunnel system without an infrastructure to deliver running water or remove waste was inviting calamity, Willem reasoned.
Svetlana lifted the traveler, flying low, this time, toward the west, and Willem and she scanned the ground for signs of disguised outposts that weren’t heavily overgrown with brush.
A second time, Svetlana set down, and Haffas exited the ship to wait for recognition. Before Nessila had even begun to warm the crown of Haffas’ head, a lookout hatch popped open. Four warriors climbed out. None of them carried slug-throwing weapons. Instead, Haffas saw long blades, worn at the waist, and the warriors carried odd weapons made from the trees of the green.
No gesture to step forward was given Haffas, so he stayed where he stood. Eventually, an elderly queen, supported by what Haffas presumed to be her heir, climbed out of the tunnel and eyed him. The queen beckoned him forward, and Haffas walked slowly and with measure toward her. He delivered an emissary’s greeting, dropping to both knees several lengths from her, an indication of nonaggression.
Inside the traveler, Willem watched anxiously, analyzing the reception Haffas was receiving. The queen kept him kneeling for a long period, while she eyed both the emissary and the ship. Willem could see the jaws of the elderly queen and the young female heir moving and earnestly wished he could hear what they were saying. Several times, Haffas gestured at the traveler.
Finally, Haffas received permission to stand and was invited inside. He beckoned to the shuttle to lift, wanting the queen to see that he wasn’t a lowly warrior, but a true emissary. Much to his relief, the ship lifted immediately, turning slowly toward them and even dipping its nose, first down and then up. It was a nice gesture to the queen, and Haffas mentally thanked the female who guided the alien vessel.
“One down,” Svetlana said, as they swung south to an area that might hold a second nest.
“I would prefer that you use an alternate phrase, Commander,” Willem remarked.
Svetlana laughed heartily but nodded her head in understanding.
It took much of the day before the rest of Svetlana’s emissaries were deployed, and she circled back to the site of the first drop-off.
“Oh, black space,” Bethany uttered. She was the first to spot the figure on the ground.
Haffas had been staked out. His throat was cut, and his emissary mask lay at his feet.
Svetlana turned to Willem. Her former statement, uttered as a simple count, now haunted her, and guilt was written in her face.
“Your words did not elicit this, Commander. Do not fall on superstition. This has occurred due to the baseness of the people we face.”
The traveler landed close to Haffas’ body, and Bethany triggered the hatch open. She eyed the scene and when she spotted no movement, she signaled Smitty Lange to follow her. Willem exited the hatch on their heels.
When the three Harakens reached the body, Willem yanked up the first two stakes with ease, despite the fact that they had been driven deep into the ground with Haffas’ limbs heavily lashed to them.
A hatch flipped open when the third stake came free from Willem’s effort, and three warriors jumped out with their weapons pointed at the Harakens. It was obvious the old queen’s warriors thought the sturdy stakes would buy them time while the aliens sought to recover the body.
A veteran of a Dischnya fight, Bethany knew the warriors wouldn’t recognize the small shiny item in her hand as a weapon. They would believe they’d surprised unarmed aliens.
Bethany and Smitty remained frozen, but Willem grabbed the last stake, which caused one warrior to growl a warning, and the SADE froze with a hand on the piece of wood. He slowly straightened and faced the warrior who uttered the words.
“Your queen has broken the emissary’s truce,” Willem growled. “This puts the lives of her soma in jeopardy from all queens.”
The warrior looked as if he had been struck across the muzzle. Hearing the Dischnya language spoken by the alien stunned him, and his lower jaw hung slack.
“Lower your weapons while we recover our emissary or the metal tools in my soma’s hands will put you to sleep,” Willem threatened.
A stalemate existed, with both groups eyeing each other and no one making a move. Movement at the hatch caught Bethany’s eyes, and several more warriors bounded out. They tried to encircle the group, but Willem uttered a warning growl, one he’d recorded from Pussiro, and the warriors halted and carefully retreated to join their comrades.
The old queen and the heir climbed out of the tunnel. She sniffed the air to catch the alien scents and growled her own warning. “Go,” she ordered. “Leave your messenger where he lies. The Fossem Soma declines the Fissla. We don’t heed the words of aliens.”
Bethany relayed the message to Smitty, and the two pretended to relax, straightening out of their crouches, and lowering their stun guns. It worked, the warriors relaxed a little too.
“And we, who brought this emissary under the mask of truce, do not recognize an old, embittered queen, who does not obey the laws of the Dischnya. We will take this one with us,” Willem ground out in his best Dischnya.
The aged queen’s eyes burned with hate, and she snarled a reply.
A portion of Bethany’s stun gun beam overlapped a warrior and struck the old queen in the side. She fell to the ground, unable to rise, and spit vitriolic at the three Harakens.
The two security personnel kept their weapons trained on the tunnel entrance and watched the scope follow their movements. In the meantime, Willem asked the young female Dischnya, “Who are you?”
“I’m Posnossa, heir to the Fossem Soma,” the female replied, standing fully erect with her tail thrashing proudly behind her. But, soon she lowered herself to stare at the queen, withering on the ground and clutching her numb side. Then she gazed at the bodies of the nest’s warriors. “Not every soma was guilty of your emissary’s death.”
“And those who are guilty have yet to be judged and punished,” Willem said, closing Haffas’ eyelids gently. “Listen to their breathing.”
Posnossa knelt at the side of the nearest warrior. She placed a hand on his chest and felt it rise and fall. Looking carefully at the others, she could see the same was true. “You speak the truth,” she said to Willem.
“I always speak the truth. We’re called Harakens, and we don’t kill unless we must.”
Posnossa hung her head. Pointing at the queen, she said, “This one ordered it. She said the emissary couldn’t be Dischnya if he stepped from an alien ship.”
“He was Haffas of the Tawas Soma, a brave warrior, who brought you an offer to meet in Fissla.”
“So he said. But our queen said he lied … said it was a trick to take the nest.” Posnossa studied the scene of the murdered emissary, the sleeping warriors, the three strangers, the alien ship, and her mad matriarch. “The invitation to the Fissla is real?” she asked.
“It’s as Haffas told your queen,” Willem replied. “The Harakens wish to unite the Dischnya and help raise them out of the ground.” It was a slight exaggeration on his part, and he silently asked Alex for his forgiveness, but deep in his crystal core, Willem wanted to be a part of the peace Alex wished to bring to the planet.
“Chona Posnossa, Fossem Soma, will attend the Fissla,” the young female declared. When the old queen hissed at the presumption of her heir, Posnossa swung around and raked a clawed foot across her mother’s throat, slashing it open. Blood poured from the wound, and, in moments, the old queen uttered a death rattle. Posnossa dropped to both knees and hung her head, saying, “The queen of the Fossem Soma begs forgiveness for your emissary’s death.”
“Attend the Fissla. Speak for peace, and you’ll receive our forgiveness,” Willem said. He yanked the last stake free with one hand, picked up Haffas, and started back to the ship.
Bethany and Smitty backed up slowly. The sergeant spared a glance for the torn throat of the old queen, while the corporal snatched the emissary mask off the ground.
Posnossa watched the ship silently lift and fly away. The hatch near her opened and warriors flooded out. One by one, they knelt at her feet, long tongues licking her fingertips and tasting the scent of the new queen. Word spread quickly among the soma that the old queen was dead, and Posnossa ruled the nest. It was a relief to most. The killing of an emissary had shocked them. A drastic change was needed, and the young queen was a welcome sign of that.
Svetlana and Willem’s work to recover the other emissaries continued without further incident.
Overhead, aboard the Sojourn, forty-three nests were identified, with two wiped out from some sort of disease. Of the forty-one queens who met with emissaries, thirty-four agreed to attend the Fissla, including the young queen, Posnossa.
-21-
Fissla
Nessila was low on the horizon when the Tawas Soma lookouts passed the word that the Haraken ships were returning. Pussiro ran ahead of Nyslara, who loped behind without her headdress and robe. Pussiro noticed that the queen wore neither since returning from her time with the aliens. Seven ships perched again on the plains, as the queen and wasat emerged from the lookout post.
“This was too soon for them to return,” Pussiro said. “The plan must not have worked.”
“Do not judge the Harakens by Dischnya standards,” Nyslara replied. “It might not be too soon for the return of these aliens.”
Alex and Willem strode from their separate ships to meet with Nyslara and Pussiro. After a short greeting, Alex laid out the count of the nests for Nyslara, and the queen’s eyes grew with interest. “The queens of thirty-four out of forty-one active nests have agreed to attend,” she said with enthusiasm. “We’ve done well, Dassata, much better than I had hoped.”
Willem completed the translation for Alex and then delivered the bad news about Haffas. About that time, the emissaries emerged from Svetlana’s ship. Haffas was laid on a grav pallet, his mask over his face, covering the jagged slash across his throat. Bethany and her trooper walked alongside the pallet.
“A good warrior,” Alex said simply.
“I thought many more of my soma would die,” Nyslara commented. “Your ships were more impressive than even I supposed.”
Alex only nodded slowly to Nyslara when he heard her words through Willem, as Haffas’ body was carried past.
“Mates?” Alex asked.
“Diss,” Nyslara replied, raising a single digit. “I will find her a new warrior.”
At Alex’s urging, Bethany related the story of Haffas’ death, the exchange with the aging queen, the brief fight, and the death of the queen from her heir’s claw.
The remaining emissaries gathered behind Nyslara, their masks in their hands, while warriors carried Haffas below to prepare for his burial. She turned and reviewed them. As she spoke, the Harakens watched their muzzles lift, their stances straighten, and chuffs escape their lips. Then she asked a question and seven warriors stepped forward. She interrogated them thoroughly.
Alex glanced at Willem, but the SADE shook his head. Either he couldn’t hear them, which Alex doubted, or the discussion was beyond his capabilities.
The seven warriors stepped back into the ranks and, at a command from Pussiro, they hurried into the tunnels.
“The trend is clear,” Nyslara said to Willem and launched into a longer explanation.
“It would appear, Ser,” Willem said, “that Nyslara questioned the seven emissaries who visited the
queens who refused to attend the Fissla. She sees a trend. It was the eldest of the queens who refused the offer. Four of those queens are without female progeny, meaning they have no heirs.”
“How did the emissaries discover that four of them had no daughters?” Alex asked.
When Willem relayed the question, Nyslara tapped a dark-nailed finger alongside her muzzle, and Alex nodded his understanding.
“Nyslara believes that the older the queen, the less she trusts the concept of the Fissla, possibly thinking it to be a trap, but not going so far as to kill her messenger,” Willem continued. “She emphasizes that the four aging queens, who are without an heir, present problems. I’m not sure of this next part, Ser, but she’s speaking of something that goes wrong with the soma if left without a queen for too long. That’s the point at which she tapped her skull.”
* * *
Aboard the Sojourn, later that evening, the arguments in the captain’s salon grew heated about the arrangements for the Fissla, and this was only among friends. Alex voiced his ideas, but security objected. The captains volunteered their plans, but most everyone objected to those. On top of it all, the SADEs, as Winston explained it, wanted to be present at this historic event to observe the proceedings firsthand.
“Willem, let’s discuss security concerns,” Xavier said, attempting to take control of the discussion. “Who attends a Fissla?”
“From each nest, Captain, the queen, the wasat, and one warrior,” Willem replied. “An emissary precedes his two principals, wearing the mask of truce.”
“Won’t they have to cross the territories of other nests, Willem?” Reiko asked.
